Chocolate fix
Just in time for Christmas, it turns out that Big Chocolate has been playing the Grinch. Canadian antitrust authorities have charged in a lawsuit that the Canadian branches of Hershey, Mars, and Nestlé have been conspiring to set prices for the last five years. The regulators have evidence of collusion in the form of affidavits from parties involved, as well as e-mail and printed documents.
The companies, in league with ITWAL, a Canadian chocolate distributor, coordinated price raises for a variety of candy bars. The Canadian candy industry has annual income of about $2.3 billion Canadian.
At this point, Cadbury Schweppes, which is Canada's #1 chocolate maker, is not named in the lawsuit, at least so far. It has however been contacted by investigators from the Competition Bureau.
US authorities are now looking to see if the same has taken place in the US,
Cartels are notoriously difficult to uncover, as firms in an oligopoly are usually very careful to cover their tracks. But we are now seeing a spate of antitrust actions across the world, actions that involve price fixing cartels. We know we are just scratching the surface.
7:22:31 PM 
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